Tuesday, 25 July 2017

Last
week, the Western Mail carried a story (to which I’ve been unable to find a
link) which referenced the views of Professor Richard Tuck
of Harvard University in the US on the question of Brexit and Corbyn. I hope that I don’t over-paraphrase a complex
argument if I say that, in essence, he argues that membership of the EU
prevents a politician like Corbyn from implementing some of the things he
supports, and that Brexit, followed by a Corbyn election victory, would set the
UK free to pursue a much more socialist agenda.
It is, in a sense, the classic ‘left’ case against the EU, seeing the EU
as institutionalising neo-liberal policies inimical to the interests of working
people as understood by the classic British left. It’s an attractive argument, and there is
much about it which I naturally support.

However,
as a counterpoint to that, there was an article in the Guardian last week
by John Harris which suggested that underpinning the views of Brexiteers like
Liam Fox is the belief that “Brussels is
not the liberalising, pro-business force that reality suggests, but an eternal
brake on enterprise and initiative that has to be comprehensively left behind”. On this understanding of what the EU is
about, Brexit followed by the election of a more right-wing Tory government is
the outcome which they desire, since it would set the UK free of all the
constraints on neo-liberalism which membership of the EU imposes.

It’s
like two sides of the same coin, but can they both be right? It is, of course, entirely possible that both
are correct in their diagnoses, even if the proposed cures are very
different. The treaties and agreements
built up under the EU over many years do indeed place constraints on the
freedom of governments to give state aid to industries, and they do indeed
place constraints on the ability of companies to exploit their employees. Both sides concentrate their attention on
those constraints that they don’t like.
We end up with an unholy alliance of people who are agreed that the constraints
should be removed, but are hugely at odds about how the consequential ‘freedom’
should be used. They can both be right
about the existence of constraints, but they can’t both be right about what
will follow their removal. But there’s much
more to this than simply deciding which of the two versions of an EU-constraint-free
UK is the most (or least) attractive.

Four
things in particular struck me about the arguments here.

The
first is that, from both viewpoints, it’s not Brexit that makes the difference;
it is the policies which the UK chooses to implement afterwards. Freed from the admitted constraints, would
the electorate choose a more state-directed future under Labour or a more
laissez-faire future under the Tories?
Whilst the short term might well look to be Corbyn’s as things stand at
present, the longer term electoral history of the UK – and more specifically
England in this context – does not fill me with confidence. Constraining the right looks the more
attractive option, even if it also constrains the left.

The
second is whether those constraints imposed by membership are the only thing
preventing the implementation of socialist policies. Personally, I think not; the world has become
more intertwined - and global capital does not exercise its undoubted power
solely through the institutions of the EU.
The history of “socialism in one
country” is not a pretty one, and globalisation has made its achievement
more, rather than less, challenging.

The
third is about confusion between institutions and policies. For sure, policies can become embedded in the
way institutions work, but it is never necessarily or irreversibly so. And there are people with similar views in
other EU member states. So which offers
the best hope for the future – seeking to change the UK, or seeking to change Europe? While changing the EU’s underlying economic philosophy
looks like a more complex and long-term task that I might wish, I tend to the
view that it is ultimately going to be a better solution. Issues such as climate change require collective
action over a long period, and need an international perspective.

Fourthly,
what about Wales? The problem with the
‘left’ case against the EU is that it implicitly assumes the continuation of
the UK, to provide a source of non-Tory MPs from outside England. Not for nothing are people like Corbyn
lukewarm at best about devolution, not to say hostile to independence; their
vision for the UK depends on anti-Tory votes in Wales and Scotland. At the same time as Labour’s position
requires that continued union, Brexit also makes the alternative future –
independence outside the EU – considerably less attractive and practical as an
option, unless Brexit leads to the collapse of the EU, which would ‘normalise’
such a status. That looks highly
unlikely to me.

I
know that there are many independentistas
who sympathise with the views put forward by Professor Tuck, because they would
want Wales to have the freedom of action he describes. I suspect, though, that the ‘freedom’ is a
mirage based on wishful thinking, and the better outcome for Wales is as a
member of a multi-national and multi-lingual union of free nations. Changing the nature of that union is the real
task in hand – Brexit is an unwelcome diversion.

1 comment:

The left-wing case for Brexit seems to rely on a variant of the 'British exceptionalism' argument generally favoured by the right, i.e. a wildly optimistic belief in Britain's ability to 'go it alone'. The imperialist mindset on which this belief is grounded seems to span the political spectrum among unionist parties.